L.A. Trip - Day 5: Disneyland, P.M., Part 2

Since the Haunted Mansion was closed and we were near a train station, we decided to ride the train all the way around the park - not something we would have done had the park been crowded.  It was great though - we got to relax and see the Grand Canyon diorama and Primeval World; two displays that don't exist at Walt Disney World.

The French Market across from the depot.  We'll come back here.

L.A. Trip - Day 5: Disneyland, P.M., Part 1

After lunch we headed over to Adventureland and the Enchanted Tiki Room.

Adventure awaits!

All the birds sing words and the flowers croon in the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room

L.A. Trip - Day 5: Disneyland, A.M.

Welcome to "The Happiest Place on Earth."  It's going to be a great day!

L.A. Trip - Day 4: Disneyland Resort

I woke up this morning at 6:30am, threw on some clothes and walked down to the corner Starbucks.
Pooped a short while later - hooray!

VMAs are over - looks like they're taking Miley down

The Walk of Fame stars are everywhere.  They're over here by our hotel...

L.A. Trip - Day 3: Universal Studios Hollywood, Part 3

After our snack stop we headed over to the Waterworld stunt show.  It's a little strange that USH has a stunt show that's now based on a 20 year old movie flop, but the show was really good with a strong stunt cast.

Ignore the partial-people - there was a lot of movement while I was taking the panoramic

L.A. Trip - Day 3: Universal Studios Hollywood, Part 2

We next went to the studio tour which had a line longer than Crystal Gayle's hair and a 65 minute wait.  But thanks to the magic of our one-time pass we skipped the line, picked up our 3D glasses and boarded the next tram to depart.  Each tram consists of 4 linked passenger cars, each with it's own video monitors that play various clips as you go along.  There's also a live guide leading the tour from the front tram.  We sat on the right-side middle of the first car on the tram.

City backlot at the bottom of the hill

The studio tour is a 45 - 60 minute tram ride through the studio backlots, sets, and a few interactive events.  It's the reason why we chose to come to USH.  We didn't take a lot of photos as we just wanted to enjoy the ride.  Also, it was Sunday so there wasn't a lot of production action going on.  Here's the order as best I can remember:

After leaving the station we headed down a hill and past the sound stages, including where The Voice is currently shot and The Mindy Project (which is still in production and will be on Hulu).  Then we drove through the city streets backlot, passed some production offices/bungalows, then moved on to King Kong.

Sound stages down below

L.A. Trip - Day 3: Universal Studios Hollywood, Part 1

Ok, this is going to be a long entry.  Today we went to Universal Studios Hollywood.

This has never been photographed before, I'm sure

L.A. Trip - Day 2: Dinner And A Movie

I'm not sure what time we made it back to the hotel, but it was around 5:00pm.  We freshened up a bit then walked down Hollywood Blvd. to have dinner at the Pig'N Whistle.

Situated next to the Egyptian Theatre, the Pig'N Whistle opened in 1927 as a family soda fountain and restaurant to serve the patrons of the theater.  It was either part of or launched a chain than eventually dwindled.  Now this is the last one, or there are only a few more in the L.A. area.  I don't remember the details.

Pig'N Whistle exterior.  Photo from pubcrawls.com

The Egyptian Theatre and Pig'N Whistle Cafe circa 1946.  Photo from cinematicartsacademy.com.

L.A. Trip - Day 2: Griffith Observatory

We got back to the hotel, got the car, and took a crazy drive up into the hills toward Griffith Observatory.  We approached from the Southeast and drove up a maze of narrow, twisted roads through neighborhoods of houses built along and into the hillside.  Somewhere up there was a trail where you could hike up to the observatory, but after about a 1/2 mile of driving past cars parked bumper to bumper (reducing the already narrow road to less than a lane), we found a place to turn around and headed back to the main Eastern road and just drove there.

Even so, we had quite a hike uphill from our parking space along the side of the road to the observatory.  We knew ahead of time that (like everything in L.A.) there is much less parking than what is needed, and with all the cars parked along the main road we didn't try to park in the tiny lot actually at the observatory.  Instead we found an empty space someone had just pulled out of and walked climbed the rest of the way up.

So that's a parking lot over on the right, and everything from there is uphill.  The observatory is left of center at the bottom.  There's an itty-bitty parking lot just north of the observatory.  Heading Northwest from the observatory parking lot, the closest spot we could find was on the side of the road about 1/4 of the way down the first road to the left (in the upper left corner).  Then we walked up the rest of the way.
Screenshot from Google Earth.  I did not skydive just to bring you this parking explanation.

Fancy a hike?  There are miles of trails around the observatory.

L.A. Trip - Day 2: TCL Chinese Theatre

Up at 6am this morning, got going around 9:30.  Walked a mile down Hollywood Blvd. to have breakfast at Mel's Drive-In.

The W lobby/lounge/"Living Room"

Spotted on our walk to breakfast

Oj, hash browns and Yuppie Joe's Scramble:  "Ground turkey, fresh spinach, mushrooms & green onions scrambled with two large farm fresh eggs."  Delicious.

L.A. Trip - Day 1: Hotel

Our first hotel of the trip was the W Hollywood, at the intersection of Hollywood & Vine.  We got a good deal on the "Fantastic" suite:  stay 2 nights and the 3 is free.

We arrived at the hotel around 2:45pm, not long before our 3 o'clock check-in time.  The front desk said our room was almost ready - it was cleaned, but there was a broken light and they were waiting on maintenance.  No problem we said (since we were slightly early), and left our bags and cell phone number while we took a short walk to kill time.

W stands for Hotel

L.A. Trip - Day 1: Travel

Just got back from 8 days in Los Angeles/Anaheim for vacation.  We had a great time.

Day 1

Very tired this morning - long week at work and at home just to get ready to go.  Our flight is at 7:50am and we're flying Virgin America for the first time, which departs out of Love Field.

First have to say that everyone at Love Field, from the Virgin staff to the TSA agents, are all super nice this morning.  Everyone is cheerful, friendly and talkative; not at all like American Airlines and DFW Airport staff.  It's a good way to start the trip.  Plus the Virgin America plane is pretty groovy:

The only way to trip, I mean fly

E.T. The Extra-Terresttrial In Concert At The Hollywood Bowl

Just got back from vacation in L.A.  Had a great time, and will start writing trip reports in the next couple of days.

In the meantime, I had to post that last night we went to see the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform the soundtrack to E.T. live in sync with the film at the Hollywood Bowl.  It was an incredible experience and a lot of fun!  More to come later.